


Public Announcements

by AnnetheCatDetective



Series: Is This Love I'm Feeling [6]
Category: St. Elsewhere
Genre: Bondage Discussed, Gen, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Jack has about half a revelation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 06:05:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17781989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: Jack's POV on 'Advice'Jack learns more than he ever thought he would about Victor's personal life. He's left with more to think about than he'd ever thought, as well.





	Public Announcements

    A lot of what Roberta says over the PA, Jack doesn’t really hear.

 

    Well, he _hears_ all of it, but it doesn’t sink in and settle in his head.

 

    One thing does-- Victor Ehrlich was not on the side of the handcuff equation that Jack had been picturing.

 

    It was so harmless imagining it before. Just a thing you might have in common with a guy that you could never really talk about, just a mental image that wasn’t particularly meaningful or sexy or anything at all, just Victor. Victor, so eager to please everybody, so desperate to be liked-- and Jack could never understand why people _don’t_ like him. Victor’s faults aren’t any more numerous or serious than anyone else’s… if anything, he’s at his worst when he’s just trying to be a guy’s guy, but at heart he’s a good man, just a little offbeat and maybe a little needy. It had been easy to imagine that his agreeableness and need for approval extended to the bedroom in some way, when the handcuffs had come up. Victor would jump out a window if you asked him to, of course he’d…

 

    Except that’s not what he’s like, apparently. Victor in bed isn’t the simpering, validation-seeking, roll-over-and-say-yes-to-everything Victor, he’s the calm, clear-headed Victor who comes out sometimes when there’s a coding patient and he’s there giving the orders, the normally-nervous voice suddenly commanding. In the ER or on the wards, that side of Victor instills a certain amount of confidence. They’ve been at work bringing back the same patient before, and Jack’s always felt comfortable simply following orders. Maybe even the occasionally-condescending I-know-what-I’m-doing Victor, the way he gets when he needs to prove himself to someone who doesn’t trigger the same kind of desperate desire for approval in him, and Jack can understand why those moments might be off-putting to the people who get the brunt of it, who don’t know the other sides of him, but…

 

    Knowing about the handcuffs, knowing what it is that bondage brings out in Victor… It’s not going to change anything between them, no-- Victor’s married, no matter how rough a patch he’s in, and so is Jack, and he doesn’t know when exactly you stop feeling married in a situation like his. It’s just that he doesn’t think he’s ever thought about Victor being _attractive_ before, and now there’s this knowledge, just simmering in the back of his head, that if Victor was to use that ‘listen, honey, I know what I’m talking about’ tone on him, he’d be more aroused than annoyed.

 

    It’s a weird thing to think about a friend. A married friend, at that. He hadn’t felt like this when he’d been in the cuffs, or half in them, it hadn’t been like that, and even the slight, inappropriate moment of wishing he could relax into it wasn’t… it wasn’t about sex, it wasn’t even about Victor, Victor had done his best but he hadn’t inspired a whole lot of confidence through most of that experience, it wasn’t…

 

    Would it have felt different if he’d known? They both still would have been just as eager to undo the mistake, they both still would have been just as committed, be it to a steady girlfriend or a memory. But the way Jack figures, human sexuality is complex-- he imagines it’s complex enough if you have an immutable preference in the sex of your partner-- and he wouldn’t be the first person to realize an attraction to a friend from work, without any real desire to act on it. In part because he doesn’t want to act on any attractions just yet, even if he had the energy. In part because he’d like Victor to remain his friend.

 

    He’s maybe a little overly optimistic in thinking he can let the whole thing simply fade from mind-- when he gets to the lounge to take his break, there’s a group laughing about the whole PA incident.

 

    “Look, it could happen to anybody.” Wayne says, arms folded. “This is why women shouldn’t try to save it for the wedding night, if you ask me.”

 

    “Oh, sure.” Annie laughs. “Test drive the merchandise, so if he doesn’t do it for you, you’re not stuck with the guy.”

 

    “No! I mean, I’m very happy to be taken for a test drive if you’re offering--”

 

    “Dream on, Fiscus.”

 

    “But that’s not what I’m saying. I mean, you have to get used to each other. The wedding night and the honeymoon are built up in our collective consciousness as this epic romantic experience, where the sex is supposed to be magical, passionate, meaningful. But very few people are lucky enough to have a first time that’s magical like that. New lovers need to learn each other. Experiment--”

 

    “I don’t think experimenting’s Ehrlich’s problem.” One of the third year residents says, dropping his coffee cup off at the sink. He nods to Jack on his way out, and just that makes him feel… oily, somehow.

 

    “Wayne’s right.” He says. “I mean, there’s nothing wrong with waiting, if you don’t set your expectations too high, but if you expect someone to know exactly what you like the very first time, and you don’t tell them, you’re going to be frustrated.”

 

    “I don’t buy it.” Peter rolls over, from where he’d been half asleep on the couch, waving when Jack nods to him. “I mean I’m not saying every woman’s the same in bed, but if you know what you’re doing it’s not brain surgery.”

 

    “Well, you know the difference between sex and surgery.” Wayne says.

 

    “No, what?”

 

    “Victor’s good at surgery.” He finishes, to raucous laughter-- and to a disapproving frown and shake of the head from Jack. He winces. “Don’t tell him I said that, poor guy… He doesn’t deserve this. But you can’t ask me to not joke about it!”

 

    “Low-hanging fruit.” Phil shakes his head.

 

    “You’re his best friend, Fiscus.” Jack tuts.

 

    “Yeah, poor guy.” Phil snorts. “Come on, nobody here wants their dirty laundry aired like that, take it easy on Ehrlich.”

 

    Wayne falls silent, and looks a little ashamed of himself, but Peter doesn’t.

 

    “I mean, what kind of guy is he, anyway? He’s got time for that kinky crap, and he can’t work it out in bed?” He says, with a kind of gleeful disgust that turns Jack’s insides cold. “Did she say he tied her up once and didn’t even do anything to her? I mean, that’s kind of weird, right?”

 

    “Lots of people do weird things, it’s not always about sex.” Annie shrugs. “Quite frankly, the less I think about Victor Ehrlich in bed, the better.”

 

    Jack guesses he can agree with that, if not for the same reason.

 

    “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think she’s sick for liking it.” Peter adds. “Questionable taste on Ehrlich, maybe, but plenty of women are into that bondage stuff, I think that’s normal.”

 

    A little of the dread in Jack’s stomach melts away, at that. Normal. And why shouldn’t it be normal, why shouldn’t other people have a live and let live attitude towards the sex lives of friends and strangers? But the censure he’d felt so keenly when Peter had called it ‘that kinky crap’ eases. It’s not like he’s going to bring up his own proclivities, even in private-- there are things he doesn’t need to share with any of his friends, and the full range of what he likes in bed falls into that category pretty firmly. It’s not like he _needed_ to be handcuffed in bed, any more than he _needs_ chocolate syrup on ice cream-- technically he doesn’t need the ice cream, and there’s nothing missing from it when he has it with nothing else. Sex isn’t a _need_ , and handcuffs even moreso. But sometimes you feel like ice cream, and sometimes you wouldn’t say no to chocolate syrup or sprinkles or whipped cream, just like sometimes you wouldn’t say no to being put in handcuffs or seeing your wife in lingerie or… whipped cream.

 

    Wendy comes in, going straight to the coffee. “What are we talking about?”

 

    “Victor Ehrlich.” Peter says, and she gives a knowing groan and a shake of the head. “His wife seems lovely, don’t you think?”

 

    “She’s certainly been generous to the gossip mill around here.” Wendy comes back over to the table, setting her coffee down in order to give Pete a little tickle. “Hi, there, little guy.”

 

    “You wanna hold him?” He offers, and she nods, scooping him up.

 

    “Oh, I want him next.” Annie smiles, and Jack nods to her.

 

    “I’m serious, she seems nice.”

 

    “Too nice for Ehrlich, you mean.”

 

    “I’m just saying, he seems a little… you know. Marries this nice girl, cute. Ties her up and doesn’t touch her? And that much trouble in bed…”

 

    “Can we talk about anything else?” Jack frowns.

 

    Wendy bounces Pete in her arms a little, then gives his cheek a kiss and hands him off to Annie, returning to her coffee.

 

    “There’s one other thing to talk about in this hospital.” She shakes her head.

 

    “When are they going to catch this guy?” Wayne asks. “How can you skulk around a hospital in a ski mask and nobody catches him?”

 

    “I just don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing about it.” Phil says. “You know I’ve even had patients who don’t want to be alone in a room with me because they’ve heard about everything happening around here? _Patients_.”

 

    “I suggested walking women to their cars, getting some volunteers, but--”

 

    “But the problem with that is, no one knows who’s doing it.”

 

    “Yeah.” Wayne sighs.

 

    “Sure.” Peter says. “Why wouldn’t he sign up? Nobody’s got any idea who?”

 

    The door swings open again, and Victor walks in, a brief distraction from the conversation. He looks so self-conscious, Jack just wishes he could _do_ something, imagines how he’d feel if it was his own sex life that everyone heard about, his own misadventures with The Cuffs.

 

    “I guess you’re the only guy here who’s not a suspect.” Wendy says to him, as he settles into the recently-vacated seat between Jack and Wayne.

 

    “What do you mean I’m the only guy who’s not a suspect?” He frowns, glancing around-- to Jack first, and then to the others.

 

    “ _Ehrlich_. You weren’t here when the first attack happened. So you’re the only man who can really be ruled out.”

 

    “No-- I know I wasn’t here. I mean, and also I know I wouldn’t-- Anyway. I know that. But how can I be the _only_ person who’s ruled out? I mean-- you know there are other guys who couldn’t have done it! It’s not just about being out of town, there’s knowing people!” He gestures to the rest of them at the table.

 

    Victor’s faith is… nice. It’s not as though Jack can imagine anyone he really knows doing something like this, but it’s nice to know he’s not alone in having some faith in others-- it’s nice to have the same faith he extends extended right back. He can’t believe it of anyone in the hospital...it has to be someone from outside, using the place as a hunting ground.

 

    “Relax, Ehrlich. No one would suspect you even if you had been here. I mean,” Peter says, and there’s something in the heavy pauses that makes Jack uncomfortable. After his bringing up Victor’s problems earlier, something about it just makes him uncomfortable. “After what we’ve all heard about your honeymoon, you wouldn’t exactly be _effective_ at it, would you?”

 

    “Hey, now I don’t think that’s very funny!” Victor says, with such a look of indignation and _hurt_ that Jack can’t help but want to do something about.

 

    “It’s _not_. C’mon, Peter. This is serious.” He frowns, shifting ever so slightly towards Victor. Stopping himself from reaching out. He’s not sure about reaching out, whether this is the right time. Whether there is a right time.

 

    He’d known Peter would tease him at some point, but he hadn’t thought he’d say something that awful, he doesn’t know what to do about Peter being…

 

    Nasty, really. Mean, like he’d been when he’d been on drugs, Jack had thought that side of Peter was taken care of now, that he wouldn’t see that Peter again. How he’d been before, when he’d-- when they’d gotten into that fight, when every conversation meant walking on eggshells, and this isn’t really like that, Peter’s in too good a general mood for that, but it still puts Jack in mind of how he’d been, how it had felt to be around him. Things had gotten better, he’d put that behind them, but now he doesn’t know. Since he’d been the victim of that sting, things have gotten worse again, and there’s just nothing he can _do_.

 

    “Anyway, knowing people doesn’t matter. You can know a person, and like a person, and you’d never know, necessarily. You can even… I mean, you can be close to a person and not know what they’re capable of.” Annie says.

 

    He can’t argue exactly-- he might not agree that he thinks just anyone could have done _this_ \-- he can’t accept that he could know someone capable of this and never question… but you can know a person and like a person and be close to a person, and still be surprised when they hurt you. He guesses he does know that.

 

    “Yeah, but I’m not talking about just people you know and like, I mean-- I mean aren’t there people you can just trust?” Victor asks-- pleads, practically.

 

    “Yeah, there are guys I know who _I_ trust. But not every woman in this hospital knows the same people equally well. And I don’t feel comfortable telling another woman who’s scared that she should trust someone just because I do, when she’s the one who feels like she’d be putting herself at risk.”

 

    “Yeah, but-- Well, look, we all know it’s not Victor.” Wayne says. “So what if we put him on late night car-walking duty?”

 

    “Are you kidding?” Wendy laughs, and Victor flinches. “Look-- no offense, Victor, because if you offered, I’d appreciate it, and I know Jackie would-- but _none_ of the nurses want Victor Ehrlich walking them to their cars.”

 

    “But everyone knows Victor can’t have done it.”

 

    “You can’t possibly think they’d rather walk out there at night alone than with someone they know is innocent.” Jack shakes his head, leaning in a little again, debating whether there’s a point at which he’s supposed to pat Victor’s shoulder or what. Peter gives an amused snort, the mean kind, and he feels something in his back stiffen a little.

 

    “Knock it off.” Phil says, spares Jack having to try and mediate.

 

    “Innocent of this, maybe, but--”

 

“It’s just the girls who don’t know you’re harmless.” Wendy says, over Annie’s careful objection. “When you snap at them and get in their faces, they just see a really big guy.”

 

    “And you could stand to be less of a pig.” Annie steps back in, and Victor crumples in on himself.

 

    “But I wouldn’t hurt anybody.” He manages to get the words out, sounds so lost. Of _course_ he wouldn’t… and Jack realizes, with a sinking, ugly certainty, that what Roberta had said over the PA doesn’t help his case. People will think about him tying her up, and they’ll think he _could_ hurt someone, or take advantage of someone, when he’s…

 

    Well, he’s _Victor_ , he might make a joke that crosses the line once in a while, but he’s… he’s the guy who brought food over when Nina died. He’s the guy who worries so much about what everyone thinks about him. He’s the guy who would do anything for anyone who asked him. Who wants exactly one thing out of life, which is to be a surgeon, to help people. It’s _unfair_ , painfully, _disgustingly_ unfair, to know that some people will judge him for what he likes to do in bed as if it has anything to do with who he is out of it. The jokes they would make if it had been Jack’s life read out over the PA system don’t even compare, in terms of the damage they’d do.

 

    “Yeah, well we know that. But you can be really hard on the new girls.” Wendy says.

 

    “Yeah, but everyone yells all the time in a hospital.” Wayne argues, and he shifts a little closer to Victor as well.

 

    “In the ER, sure. When things go wrong.” Annie sighs.

 

    “ _You_ can be really hard on the new girls.” He tells her, and he puts an arm around Victor. Which maybe Jack should have done, only he doesn’t think so. He thinks that’s probably a job for Wayne…

 

    “I can be really hard on the old ones, too. But it’s different. When it comes from me, or from Dr. Armstrong, it’s not the same, and they don’t feel the same about it.”

 

    “Well… yeah, but--”

 

    “What do _you_ guys do to avoid being raped?” Annie demands, and Jack feels a sudden flood of shame, for never having considered-- even when there are stories on the news, he doesn’t… he doesn’t _think_ about it, it’s just not something he’s ever believed could _happen_ to him.

 

    “Nothing. I-- I never thought about it.” He says, when the silence stretches on, demanding some answer. When it feels as if she didn’t mean it entirely rhetorically.

 

    “Well-- I mean, I don’t date men, so going home with a guy isn’t an issue.” Victor says, and it would be easy to write it off as glib, except it isn’t glib. It’s… _sad_ , almost.

 

    “Ehrlich, you really are a real grade-A--” Annie starts, but Victor doesn’t seem to have noticed, just keeps talking.

 

    “You’d think it’d be enough to be six-four but I mean it seems like every time I work the ER, some guy’s hitting me or choking me, so I don’t know, but I mean sometimes I’m walking home at three AM between my stop and my apartment-- and I mean, obviously I’m more worried about being mugged than-- than-- than _assaulted_ \-- But I mean, but you know, it’s a lot of the same rules, to be prepared for-- for those two things? I know they say you’re supposed to, uh, to wet yourself, to make yourself less attractive, but I could never do that. Oh! But I can vomit, when I get really nervous. Which I would be! So I guess I could do that.”

 

    It’s… a lot to take in. Victor is sometimes a lot to take in, but this… this is a lot to take in in a way that just leaves Jack feeling uncomfortable. Guilty and sad and awkward. He’s never thought about the issue much, but apparently Victor has. Out of empathy or anxiety, he has.

 

    And, Victor has thought about what might happen to you when you go home with a man you know a little, know well enough to spend some time with, but don’t necessarily know well enough to trust, going home with. Victor has thought about this, and he doesn’t date men, but there’s a gulf between not liking men and not dating them, and that’s a thing Jack _has_ thought about.

 

    “Wait, you’ve… _actually_ thought about that?”

 

    “But you’re a guy.”

 

    “I mean… I guess? I mean, just because-- I mean, it’s just, you know, that it’s like being mugged--” Victor flounders, his face going even pinker. And he never can seem to say the right thing, but Jack thinks he knows exactly what he means.

 

    “It’s _not_ like being mugged.” Annie radiates a flat disapproval, and Jack almost flinches when Victor does.

 

    “Oh! No, of course not! No, just-- I mean-- You know, you… you just do the same things or you, or you don’t, or-- I don’t mean they’re the same, honest, I’m not that insensitive!” He shakes his head, and Jack finds he misses the way Victor’s hair would have moved, with the strength of the gesture, if it wasn’t all gelled into place. Lacquered, and it doesn’t seem like _him_ at all.

  

    “No, no, we know what you’re saying.” He says gently, because Victor seems so honestly distraught at having his words taken the wrong way. How often does that happen to him? Is he always so upset? Jack’s noticed it before, the way something in his eyes falls when people accuse him of being insensitive, when it seems like he’s really just… mentally disorganized. “You just worry about everything sometimes, and the precautions are the same. I mean, I never thought about how much… thought you have to put into this, being a woman and working nights.”

 

    “It doesn’t even have anything to do with working nights. It’s just life. Every woman I know from surgeon to housewife thinks about this.” Wendy says, and the bottom drops out.

 

    Not every woman, no. Not Nina, or she would have talked to him, they talked to each other about everything. Nina can’t have worried like that, can’t have lived in fear and considered how to make herself an unappealing target, can’t have had to think of herself in those terms, can’t have looked at herself from a predator’s viewpoint and lived every day and every night thinking about that, and never said a single word to him… She can’t have. And yet here Wendy and Annie both sit, so matter-of-fact about the idea that every woman does.

 

    “Every woman?” He glances over to the two other married men in the room, and Peter looks unconcerned, but whether it’s because he trusts that Myra’s never been in that situation or because he hasn’t taken the same set of logical leaps Jack has, Jack couldn’t say. Victor looks as uneasy as Jack feels, though. “What, every woman, all the time? Annie-- every woman you know, too? Or-- every woman you’ve ever…?”

 

    “It’s a fact of life for us. Yes.” She nods, and it’s more than he can take.

 

    He folds in on himself. And the worst part, there’s nothing he can do now that he knows to make it better, because she’s already gone. He can’t go home and ask her if she worries, if she’s ever scared, if he can ever help, if anything he could do would ever help. Can’t listen now that he knows there could be fears to listen to, because he’s already lost her to something so mundane, so _stupid_ , that neither of them ever worried about it.

 

    “Then why don’t you tell us?” He asks, weariness thick in his voice.

 

    “Because men think you’re overreacting.” Annie says, gently soothing Pete when he wakes up fussy in her arms.

 

    “Being hysterical.”

 

    “But that’s-- But if you don’t--” Jack can’t sit still, finds himself propelled around the lounge almost as if by some outside force, has to tug sharply at his hair to try to ground himself, not that it does much good. “I mean… every woman walks around thinking about this every day, and… and what? And never tells her husband about it or anything?”

 

    “What would you even do if they did tell us? What are we supposed to do, beyond what we’re trying to do now?” Wayne takes Pete, working to get him smiling again.

 

    “Maybe I wouldn’t do anything, but I’d know! But I’d have listened! Married couples are supposed to be able to talk about this kind of thing, about what they’re afraid of!” He doesn’t mean to raise his voice-- he knows it doesn’t help with Pete’s mood-- but he’s just trying to get his thoughts in order, and he can’t verbalize what it is that truly eats at him.

  

    “I guess they don’t always. But I guess I know what you mean.” Victor says, and that’s some comfort, if not much. Victor’s… Victor is a married man now. He understands some things, whatever ways his marriage might differ from Jack’s, he understands some things, and it’s better to have someone who understands some of what Jack is trying to deal with, than…

 

    It’s better to just have a friend who just gets it, than to worry about… no.

 

    “I just… it never occurred to me.” He gets the words out at last. “That there might have been things Nina worried about that she wouldn’t tell me.”

 

    “I mean if anything, I wish Roberta seemed more worried about this… I mean I told her maybe she didn’t have to come into work right now, or that she could look for somewhere else, and you’d have thought _I_ was being unreasonable” Victor nods, just as eager for someone who could commiserate, who knows what it is to worry about someone, for her life to be as your own, for her safety above your own. Whatever might be going poorly, to have those feelings and those priorities, that’s something they can both understand.

 

   “Yeah, well, based on what she said, Ehrlich, _your_ wife--” Peter starts.

 

    “Don’t you talk about my wife!” Victor rockets up from his chair, suddenly furious, and Jack can’t blame him. Even with the sentence left unfinished, there’s something in the dangling implication that _shocks_ him.

 

    “ _Jeez_ , Peter.” He frowns, suppressing a shiver. There are a few ways that sentence could have ended, some worse than others, but some… crass, and mean, but not… He’s sure there are ways that Peter wouldn’t have finished. Truly awful things. But there’s a heavy implication, intended or not, that any interest in her part on being tied up might _mean_ something, and that erases all the relief he’d felt before.

 

    That’s not what Peter was going to say. It can’t be. Peter had said there was nothing abnormal in a little occasional bondage. It was just a jab at Victor-- which still isn’t okay, but it’s better-- because there’s some friction about the shared workplace. Maybe he wasn’t even going to bring sex into it at all, just her desire to work versus Victor’s desire to support her, a desire Jack’s aware she’d mocked to her friend a little, Victor is still just into his residency, but… it leaves a bad taste in the mouth to have that empty space.

 

    “Way over the line, man.” Phil sounds a little less _rocked_ than Jack feels, reassuringly steady in his disapproval-- he doesn’t leave any room for that kind of thing to be argued for, to be okay, but he’s not escalating things, either.

 

    “Okay, okay.” Peter rolls off the couch and onto his feet, to shake Victor’s hand-- though Victor doesn’t take it, and though Jack half wishes he would just to keep the peace, he doesn’t blame him one bit. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be such a jerk to you. We’re in the same boat nowadays, huh?”

 

    “We’re _not_ in the same boat.” Victor pouts a little, arms crossing, the hurt evident.

 

    “Ah, sure. Getting in hot water with the wife-- maybe not for the same reasons.” Peter just barely pauses, eyes sweeping Victor up and down, a smirk in place that just seems wrong, that doesn’t seem at all like the Peter Jack knows. “ _Definitely_ not for the same reasons. But it’s the same boat.”

 

    “Yeah, well, the difference is, my boat’s carrying a competent doctor in it and yours? Not so much, pal.” Victor says, and Jack winces. So much for keeping the peace...

 

    “Hey, come on, you guys.” He says, but it’s too late. The lid is off on Peter’s anger now. Jack angles himself, weight on one foot, ready to put himself between them in a hurry if he has to.

 

    “I was sent up on charges that were blown way out of proportion!” Peter froths, but he doesn’t make any moves towards Victor’s personal space.

 

    Jack hears the crack of a mirror anyway, and remembers how secondary the pain had been, to the sense of suddenly finding himself in a world where nothing made sense anymore.

 

    “And I would have defended you, gladly, if they asked me, but that’s not what I’m talking about! I’m talking about how you got real sloppy when you first started having problems, and I’m not sloppy! And I’ve had to clean up your messes in the ER when you were, me and everyone else!” Victor shouts right back, but his own posture is defensive, he’s not going to hit anyone. The only thing that makes Victor Ehrlich look remotely threatening, even in a full lather, is that he can’t help being six foot four.

 

    And given that Jack is the same height, it kind of negates the threat. If Victor was to take a threatening step forward, it would be easy to put himself between them. But Victor _wouldn’t_ , he isn’t like that, even angry.

 

    Then again, Peter’s not six foot four, and he’d…

 

    But that was different, and anyway, Peter’s broad, and anyway, Peter’s _sober_ , so Jack doesn’t have to worry about that. Peter’s clean, Peter’s sober, Peter would never hurt someone sober...

 

    “Well when you do get sloppy, I guess I’ll be cleaning up after your messes, now that I’m stuck down in pathology.” He sneers, and that seems to tear it.

 

    Victor sucks in a sharp breath, and barrels out into the hallway, and Peter chuckles and flops back onto the couch.

 

    “Why do you have to do that to him?” Jack asks, a little more snappish than he’d intended. He doesn’t want to set Peter back off again. “When you and Myra were on the outs, he didn’t do anything to you.”

 

    “Oh, relax, Jack. Who cares?”

 

    “I do.” He crosses to the coffee pot, grabbing a mug. “Victor’s going to be having a hard enough time with this, he doesn’t need you making his life any harder. Just _try_.”

 

    “What, now you’re _Victor’s_ best friend?”

 

    “No, I am.” Wayne stands up, bringing a still-fussy Pete over to Jack. “So knock it off. Hey, sorry, Jack, I used all my best faces, but this little guy just needs his daddy.”

 

    “Thanks.” He flashes him a smile, finishing doctoring up the coffee with Pete in one arm. He takes it out into the hallway, relieved to find Victor hadn’t gone anywhere. He gets his attention, holding out the coffee.

 

    “Hey, here. He’s having a hard time, he doesn’t mean it…” He says, not sure when it had become his job to apologize for Peter. Still, Victor accepts the coffee, and that means… something.

 

    “He always means it with me.” He sips at it, miserable, what is Jack supposed to do to make him less miserable?

 

    “You’re just--” He starts, and stops. Just what? Just an easy target… but that’s not fair to Victor or to Peter, he doesn’t think.

 

    “Too sensitive?” Victor asks, and there’s something in his voice that… Jack doesn’t know what to do with it, but the idea that Victor might think he would accuse him of being too sensitive makes him ashamed, even if it wasn’t what he thought.

 

    “No. Not that, just… Can you _try_ , Victor?” He asks. It’s the same thing he’d asked Peter, but somehow… he feels like it’s unfair to ask it of him.

 

    “I did try. I invited him to our _wedding_ , and here he is, talking about her like-- like this is all some joke!”

 

   “Yeah, he shouldn’t have done that.” He nods. Victor’s _wife_ , Peter never should have talked about her. Jack doesn’t like thinking about Victor’s marriage too much, but then, that would be the guilt over hearing so much about it... “This whole thing’s just… He’s doing his best. I’m sorry his best’s not better with you. Hey… I’m sorry we missed the wedding. Heard it was the event of the century.”

 

    “Well… it was something, I guess.” He doesn’t look up, doesn’t smile, and Jack knows Victor worries about nothing--and worries even more about something, even when the something isn’t that terrible.

 

    “Look… Victor, you wanna know something? Nobody gets it right their first week.” He offers. He doesn’t know what else to say… how else to help, when this whole thing… the stress, the _humiliation_ , Victor has a hard enough time with people without that. And there’s nothing Jack can do to spare him from it, but at least he can offer some kind of reassurance, as a married man himself.

 

    Well, as a man who used to be married. Who still mostly thinks of himself that way, and sometimes…

 

    Sometimes doesn’t, but not in any way he thinks is good for moving on in life.

 

    “What if it’s me?” Victor asks, still miserable. If Jack was the kind of person who lectured people, he thinks he’d have some choice words for Roberta, but he doesn’t know her well enough for that, and as it is, he’s really only the type to lecture patients. Even then, barely so.

 

    “Just talk to her.” He urges. “Nothing’s as bad as it sounds when you get the chance to vent about it to your friends, you know? Talk to her about it. You’ll be okay, you guys are just new at this.”

 

    “You think?”

 

    “Yeah.”

 

    “You think I’m worrying too much about nothing?”

 

    Usually yes, Jack suspects, but he doesn’t want to say so outright. And anyway, worrying about your wife’s feelings isn’t ‘nothing’. Worrying about how people see him, what they say about him… maybe that’s not really ‘nothing’, either.

 

    “Well… It’s not nothing, no, but… I think you’re a good guy, Victor, and I think she’s a sweet girl, and I think you both just have to adjust, and it takes time. Takes a lot of work.”

 

    “She is, really, and I mean… and we’ve… we’ve just been short with each other since we got back, I guess. I mean there’s a lot to worry about. Sorry, I shouldn’t make you give me marriage advice.” Victor only barely glances up from his coffee, and Jack feels a little bad. He doesn’t like thinking very deeply about Victor and Roberta and their marriage, but he doesn’t mind giving advice, he never meant for any sense of discomfort to come through.

 

    “You’re not making me. It’s fine.”

 

    “No, it’s… it’s insensitive of me to ask, it’s just-- you always seem… good at it.” Victor says, and it’s… it’s nice. It’s nice to be considered good at it. Nice that Victor’s consideration is for Jack’s feelings as a widower, and not because Jack ever sounded as if he might be put out.

  

    “C’mon back in and sit down for a minute, okay?” He asks. If anyone were to ask him why it was so important to him, he couldn’t say. Victor is his friend, but so are a lot of people, and it doesn’t always feel so keen, so urgent, to fix things.

 

    Maybe it’s not about Jack. Maybe it’s about Victor. Jack could call a lot of people around the hospital  his friends, for some reason Victor can’t.

 

    “I mean-- I think you’re a good guy, too. Um-- or-- Thanks.” He smiles, and Jack smiles back, gesturing to the door.

 

    A good guy. Well that’s what he tries for. It’s not like he has any doubts about whether he is one, but that doesn’t make it any less nice to have it recognized.

 

    Inside the lounge, Victor takes his seat again, seems small in it for how big he is, staring into his coffee and then pushing it away, only to move it closer again.

 

    “You wanna hold him?” He offers, bringing Pete over. Pretty much everyone else has gotten to, but Victor hasn’t yet… and maybe Jack is a little biased, but he’s always felt having a baby in your arms to be a pretty therapeutic experience. Especially since it became just the two of them.

 

    “The baby?” Victor blinks up at him, something in his face lighting up, cautious but excited.

 

    “No, Fiscus.” He jokes. “Yeah, the baby.”

 

    He holds Pete out, and Victor takes him, and that cautious question disappears from his eyes in an instant as he brings Pete down into his lap, replaced by delight. And Pete seems happy with the arrangement himself, burbling contentedly up at Victor.

 

    “Hi, there, champ.” Victor says, giving him a gentle little bounce on his knee before bringing him in close, to settle in his arms. “Aw, look at you…You’re getting big, huh? Look at you…”

 

    He’d make a good dad, Victor… he just seems _happy_ , with a kid in his arms. Jack doesn’t know Roberta enough to hazard a guess as to what kind of parent she’d be, or if she wants kids. Some people don’t. From the way Victor talked about her before the wedding, he’d have imagined she was pretty ideal, from hearing her over the PA, he feels somewhat less charitable towards her in general, but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t be a good mother one of these days. Anyway, it would be a shame for Victor not to have this for himself.

 

    Wayne notices it too, the way he gets.

 

     “You better fix things with Roberta before you start asking her to pop out a few kids. I see that look in your eyes.”

 

    “What, me? I mean-- We’re not ready for that-- But you think?”

 

    “Talking to a baby’s the happiest you’ve looked since you got back.” Wayne reasons, and he’s not wrong.

 

    Victor turns to Jack, uncertainty flickering across his face. “Well… can you blame me? Does a kid… does that fix things?”

 

   “Are you kidding? Gives you a whole new set of problems to work out. But… when you’re ready to tackle ‘em, it’s worth it. Fiscus is right, start with working out the things you guys have now. And then… when you’re ready for this, you’ll do great.”

 

    “See? Fiscus is right.”

 

   Pete’s hand pops out of his mouth covered in drool, smacks into Victor’s chest, but before Jack can apologize on the baby’s behalf or belatedly offer a towel, Victor laughs softly, looking just as enamored as he had before.

 

   Yeah… it would be a shame if Victor couldn’t have this for himself.


End file.
